Ariel Hyatt is the founder of Ariel Publicity & Cyber PR a New York based digital PR firm that connects artists, authors and filmmakers to blogs, podcasts, internet radio stations and social media sites. Over the past 13 years her firm has represented over 1,400 musicians of all genres.

Educating musicians is her passion and her philosophy is: combine social media with Internet marketing to help artists grow their fanbase and increase their income.

Several times a year, she leads sold-out workshops to musicians and music industry professionals looking to learn about Social media and online marketing. Her bi-weekly ezine and YouTube series “Sound Advice” has over 10,000 subscribers and she is a contributing blogger to Music Think Tank.

Ariel has written dozens of articles on how to navigate the “new” music business and her book: Music Success in Nine Weeks is available at Amazon.

Bob Baker is an author, musician, and workshop leader who is dedicated to helping musicians, authors, and creative people of all kinds get exposure, connect with fans, and increase their incomes through their artistic passions. Bob’s books include “Guerrilla Music Marketing Handbook,” “Unleash the Artist Within,” “Branding Yourself Online,” “Self-Publishing Success Secrets,” and more.

I was thrilled to interview Bob for the Artist’s EDGE Membership awhile back and everyone was very impressed with his knowledge of Marketing and how to apply it to the world of the Arts and Entertainment Industry. He made what can be a scary subject both understandable and approachable.

For hundreds of music marketing tips, visit Bob’s Website – The Buzz Factor

I came across a great blog post at dumblittleman.com, entitled – 4 Reasons You Fail to Achieve Your Goals. And I’d like to add two more:

5. Lack of will.

In the Success Principles, Jack Canfield talks about fears, considerations and obstacles – when you set a great goal, you will always encounter these three things. I believe many people don’t achieve their goals, because they are unwilling to confront their fears, considerations and obstacles.

In essence, a lack of will. Will is defined (thanks to Dictionary.com) as:

the act or process of using or asserting one’s choice; volition

So often in my conversations with people do I hear the words, “It would be nice…” or “I wish…” In order to achieve your goals – you must replace the verbs “would be” and “wish” with will:

It will be nice….

I will….

The first step after choosing a goal is to apply your will. It is an act of volition, an act of choice – which leads me to my 6th reason you fail to achieve your goals:

6. A lack of ownership.

Not only are these MY goals. But these are also MY fears, MY considerations and MY obstacles (even the external obstacles are mine).

If you have the will and are willing to take responsibility for your results, then you will get your goals.

How do you create the will? Say that you do: “I have the will.” In other words choose it. How do you take responsibility? I own my results – I choose them.

I came across this blog post by Jared Matthew Kessler in which he talked about ways that he stays motivated and I was motivated to write a response. Jared talks about creating more reasons why to do something than reasons why not to do something. And I agree with that – but think you need to take it one step further.

If you want to not only create motivation in yourself, but also be able to maintain it over time, the type of reasons to do something are also critically important. When you are looking at your reasons for doing something – you want your reasons to be forward motivated, not away-from motivated.

The issue of weight loss is a common case in point. Lets say you want to lose weight. This is away-from motivated – you want to move away from your body as it is right now. You want to get rid of something – the weight. The problem with this and any away-from motivation – is that as soon as you are far enough away from the pain that caused the motivation – you will stop being motivated. So as soon as you’ve lost the weight, you are no longer motivated to exercise and eat healthy and control your portion size, and so on. And the tendency is to slip back in to your old habit of behavior. Hello weight gain and yo-yo dieting.

If your motivation is forward-focused, you want to create a healthy body and tons of energy. Then you will continue to be motivated to indulge in those healthy behaviors – because you are still wanting those results. And so, you create ongoing motivation, not cyclical motivation.

This concept is applicable to any behavior you want to create with consistency. For example – making money. If you’re focused on not being broke – you will create just over broke and stop working. If you’re focused on creating wealth and freedom – you will be motivated to continue to create money even when you’ve got enough to get by on.

So focus on what you want to create, not what you want to eliminate and you will create powerful habits of behavior and thought with a lot more ease and joy.